Ramblings and slight reviews

I hope to follow in Mafus' footsteps and dig up some of my old comic creations to post. Possbily even do some modern day drawings of my characters of yesteryear. I do know that I have the first three issues of the anthology my friends Jim, Ninos and I did back in college. Perhaps I'll get off me arse and scan 'em in for your amusement and enjoyment. In the meantime here's an illustration I did for a friend's bicycle team jersey. They went by the moniker The Phat Nancys and I believe they were in some 24 hour bike race at Snowshoe or sumthin' like dat. 'Puttin' shame in your game' was their tagline.



Picked up the latest three issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. For some reason I was leery of keeping up with the title once Bagley left, but I've seen the error of my ways. Stuart Immonen is the heir apparent for the title. I loved his stuff on Nextwave, so I have no idea why I didn't think that energy wouldn't carry over to Ultimate Spider-Man. Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy. So, yeah, Death of The Green Goblin is great arc so far and I look forward to keeping up with the series.

Finished New Frontier last night, too. Wow. Just wow. Makes me wish I was a little more versed in the DC Universe. Bat-Man and Green Lantern are about the only characters I can claim some knowledge of. Sure everyone knows Superman from the movies, but he has maybe 3 or 4 issues in my collection—tops. Luckily, DC has their Showcase line out, so educating myself shouldn't be that much of a problem. I'm especially eager to delve into The War That Time Forgot, which was an obscure title back in the day that Darwyn dug up for New Frontier. In fact, most of the Showcases I own are WWII related: The Haunted Tank, Unknown Solider and so-to-be-acquired TWTTF. Mainly I think because the artists on these titles were so great—Joe Kubert to say the very least. That said, you can't go wrong with any of the aforementioned titles.

Finished the fight

I would've posted this yesterday as it was Halo 3 Day, but I was so damn tired after a marathon session that I didn't have it in me to look at a screen anymore. Thankfully, Mafus had given me the hardcover edition of Darwyn Cooke's 'New Frontier,' which helped me unwind after sending the Covenant and Flood for a much needed dirt nap.

I took an hour nap before getting up at 11:30 to head over to Gamestop for the midnite release. I was dreading a long line, but it actually wasn't bad at all. Maybe fifty some people in front of me with another thirty to forty showing up behind. I had the game in hand by 12:11 and headed home directly. Popped that sucker in and didn't stop until around 11:30 for lunch and to chill with Angie and Lilah, who was home with pink eye. I took a 2.5 hour nap and stolled Lilah around before getting back into the thick of it again until the bitter end. Looking forward to going through the game again, but at my own pace and not rushing through to "finish the fight." So much more to find and explore. I did luck in to finding one of skulls, but there's still another eight to find.

After the disappointment of Halo 2's campaign I must say I'm much happier with the steps Bungie took to ensure Halo 3 would rectify that earlier heartbreak. Good solid fun. Challenging (to the point of frustration sometimes). Well worth ten hours of your life. Much like 'New Frontier.' May ooze about its glory later this week after I digest it.

Concussions and the such

This weekend was my friend Phil's bachelor party. Said party started at 1 o'clock with paintball out in Powhatan. I did reasonably well for not having played the sport in nigh on 14 years. I had three or four kills with three deaths and was even the last man standing in one match. Unfortunately I took a couple nasty shots as well. The first one was in the Adam's Apple in the second match, but the doozy came in the last match of the day. Someone broke cover on the opposing team and I was low on paintballs so I decided to charge. I think I got off four shots before I was pelted: two shots in the arm and one just above my mask that rocked me a little. Adrenaline must've kept me from realizing just how "little" it really hurt me. I went home and cleaned up before meeting the gang at Mexico for grub, beer and testosterone. I had two beers and big ol' plate of Mexicali goodness before bowing out and heading home—my head was killing me. I went pretty much directly to bed and slept all night. I woke up with a headache, feeling dull and lethargic. Bending over was painful as I found out playing with Lilah. I powered through most of the day before heading over to Patient First where they confirmed pretty much what my retired nurse Mom thought, I had a mild concussion. Yah!

Still feeling a little blah and dull today, but will perserve on since I'm taking tomorrow off to "finish the fight," as most of us gamers will be doing. Staring at the screen writing this is kinda killing my eyes though. May have to wear shades while I play, if it comes to that. Ugh.

Two years down

Today Angie and I celebrate our second anniversary. (Loves ya, honey.) Doesn't seem like it's been that long—the years have kinda flown by. (Lilah's helped with that I'm sure.) Today's also Mafus' 39th b-day. Stop on by his site and drop some burfday greetings on his old arse.

Here's three pages of the strip version of SANGUINE that I dug up. As with the rest of the SANGUINE stuff this was never finished, but that's okay 'cuz now I've got inking practice fodder.

Prologue Page 2 Inked

Nothing fancy. Just polished off the last two panels of it. Hopefully it's blatantly obvious which panels I did six years ago and which ones I finished tonight. It was actually kinda fun play with the wolf fur. I was sweating that as NOWERE is about werewolves and if drawing them was a bitch I'd drag my heels even more with it. Luckily, that isn't the case.

Sanguine: Prologue

Back on the Sanguine tip. I took the day off as I had spent my weekend helping Mafus with the grim task of carting stuff from his brother's house. (Visit his site for a complete account.) I was shifting some items around, making room for Mafus' old drawing table, which he graciously threw my way, and I happened upon these pages.

The idea was to tell the tale of the Croatoan Twins, who were characters in the greater story of Sanguine. Romulus and Remus were raised by a wolf and then later found by Lok, who trained them as assassins. Their schtick was that they ate their kills. Real deep, I know, but to my untrained mind back then it was creative gold. Fool's gold, maybe, but gold nonetheless. Thinking about inking these up and dropping some dialogue on them to get the dormant juices flowing.

I also found the strip version of this that I was going to submit for Dark Horse's Strip Search, but never finished as is my M.O. I'll post those in a day or two.

Sanguine's end

Here's the last four pages of my old tale. It's by nowhere near the end of the actual story, which I wrote as a screenplay for the first Project Greenlight. Maybe one day I'll actually go back and finish the whole thing, but at the rate I've been going with my latest tale—don't hold your breath.

My 'rents arrive in town this evening, so things will be quiet here for a couple days. Especially since I'm out of old art. I could scan in the pages from the three anthologies two friends and I did in college. Maybe even hunt down my old strips from the college paper. I'll see what I can find and get back to you. Snoogans.

Never would have guess this...

Which Heroes character are you? Your Result: Hiro Nakamura   You are Hiro Nakamura. You can bend space and time with your mind. You always try to do what is right and you are very innocent. Maybe too innocent. You took a trip to the future and saw NYC blow up. Now you are focused on saving the world. You also love sci-fi.
Claire Bennet
Peter Petrelli
Issac Mendez
Matt Parkman
Nathan Petrelli
Niki Sanders
Sylar
Which Heroes character are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Penultimate Sanguine posting

That's right, true believers. Only one more batch of Sanguine pages are heading your way. I personally think Page 9 represents me at my artistic peak. So dark. So powerful. So one sentence. Ah well, it's not as if Frank Miller never did it.

Hopefully everyone had a safe and happy Labor Day weekend. We thought about hitting the beach, but decided our sanity was worth more. Too many idiots flock to the coast on these long weekends that it's painful. Their brains go on vacation more than anything else. But enough social commentary. The 'rent arrive tomorrow to spend some time with their granddaughter and give us a bit of a respite. That's all I gots right now. Until next time.